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Jamaica has always treated other people’s songs as raw material. In the sound system days, selectors hunted American R&B records and Kingston producers cut local versions to meet…

Every Jamaican wedding has a moment when the formal speeches give way to the bassline, the aunties find their feet and the groom finally loosens his tie.

Reggae has always known how to hurt. Beneath the one drop and the warm bass, the music carries grief, exile, poverty and heartbreak, often sung so sweetly that…

Vybz Kartel isn’t wasting words. His latest Instagram post is just a hashtag, a sun emoji, a date and a call to action: “#thesun ☀️ December 18th Preorder…

The most surprising stat from Damian Marley’s big weekend might be a video chart. “Good Morning,” his new link up with dancehall artiste 450, went straight to No.

Radio broadcaster Captain Kirk found himself on the receiving end of the tributes as reggae artistes, broadcasting colleagues and loved ones gathered in South Florida to give “The…

Before Jamaica had a record industry, it had the box. Picture a wall of speakers, a turntable, a selector guarding a crate of tunes nobody else could find,…

Every great Jamaican record has two stars: the voice you hear first and the person behind the board who decided how it would hit the speaker box.

Long before Sting, before Verzuz, before anybody filmed a stage war on a phone, Jamaica was settling scores with speaker boxes.